


on a clear morning, you're not far off

by heylifeitsemily



Series: awfully fond [5]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, In Between Games, Moon Godlike Watcher, Pining, Pre-Relationship, not that he knows to call it that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 03:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19123222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylifeitsemily/pseuds/heylifeitsemily
Summary: Edér's never been prone to insomnia before.





	on a clear morning, you're not far off

Edér rolls over again, huffing before kicking the tangled mess of sheets off and flopping onto his back. The whole damn town is silent, mocking him as he tosses and turns and never quite drifts off. In the summer he blamed it on the heat, and in the fall it was the wind rattling the shutters. Now, he'd blame it on the cold if it weren't for the fire blazing in its hearth the next room over. 

Maybe if the place caught fire and burned to the ground with him in it, he'd finally get some rest before the wind carried his ashes off.

He stands up, running a hand through his hair before resuming his nightly bout of pacing a hole through the floor. Edér's never been prone to insomnia, either working himself too hard to resist the pull of his bed or self-medicating to keep his thoughts from straying down unwanted tangents. He's trying to quit the latter in the upkeep of his mayoral duties, but those aren't really helping him with the former; it's soft work for the most part, even if the townsfolk can be a little dense some days.

Edér opens the window and breathes in the night air, frigid against the heat coming off the fire. The moonlight soaks into his skin. He's facing west, and he realizes his eyes have been searching the middle distance for a particular castle's spires unbidden.

He swallows. It's another unintentional truth that he looks to the west every morning, knows by heart where to look on the horizon line to catch a glimpse of those spires on a clear day. 

He trudges back to bed and sits on the edge, his head suddenly very heavy in his hands. 

There's a pile of letters from the Watcher in the top drawer of his desk. She writes a page and then some in response to his monthly check-in, always better with words between the two of them. He can still hear her inflection, the little quirks of her accent and the pitch of her laugh as clear as if she were there beside him, reading them aloud herself. After everything they've been through, he'd be hard pressed to forget even a facet of her. The thought that he still might strikes a chord somewhere between his lungs.

It's hard to admit to the recesses of his mind that it's Evain - or rather, the lack of Evain - plaguing him at night. He lies back down, and his chest is too light without the weight of her head on his shoulder. Exposed, like the arm she'd drape across his stomach protected him somehow, put him at ease. Even on the nights they weren't doubling up, he had the subtle glow of her nearby to lull him off to sleep.

Edér misses a lot people, some living, most long gone. It's a weight he was fine carrying alone until she came and shouldered some of it.

It's a dumb thought, but he can't help but wonder if she's there at Caed Nua, lying awake and missing him too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Matt Mercer for being supremely talented, and a call-out for me for finishing this instead of getting a good night's sleep.


End file.
